West Australian voters have returned Labor to office in another landslide. Labor won 42 percent of the primary vote, compared to the Liberal’s 28.5 percent, making this the second largest Labor vote ever—topped only by the party’s stomping 2021 victory.
At the close of counting on election night (8 March), Labor had secured 40 of the 59 seats in the state’s Legislative Assembly. The Liberals had secured five and the Nationals four, with ten seats remaining in doubt. 
Labor is now set for a third term in office. Only in the 1980s did WA Labor enjoy such a long period of government, beginning with the election of Brian Burke and ending with the stench of the <a href="https://redflag.org.au/node/6661">WA Inc. scandal</a>. 
Since the Pilbara iron ore industry came to dominate the state’s economy in the late 1960s, successive state governments—both Labor and Liberal—have dutifully served mining interests. The Cook Labor government has been no exception. Premier Roger Cook <a href="https://www.perthnow.com.au/entertainment/music/premier-roger-cook-slams-singer-peter-garrett-for-sowing-seeds-of-hatred-with-gina-rinehart-rant-c-17901693">lashed</a>
Midnight Oil singer Peter Garret for “sowing seeds of hatred” a week out from the election, after Garrett sledged Australia’s richest person, mining magnate Gina Rinehart, at a Perth Festival gig.
In 2017, Labor came into office under the leadership of Mark McGowan. In that election, the Liberals suffered a 16 percent swing, their worst <a href="https://redflag.org.au/article/node-5719">electoral defeat</a>
on record. The outgoing Barnett government had presided over the largest mining boom in the state’s history. However, it had been an opportunity squandered. When the Liberals proposed to sell 50 percent of the state’s electricity corporation to pay off mounting state debt, voters gave them a drubbing.
In 2021, Labor secured nearly 60 percent of the primary vote, while the Liberals faced near <a href="https://redflag.org.au/article/smashing-wa-liberals">annihilation</a>. Labor won 53 Legislative Assembly seats, the Nationals four and the Liberals just two. The Liberals faced the shame of losing their opposition party status.
<a href="https://redflag.org.au/article/mark-mcgowans-legacy-serving-big-capital">McGowan’s strategy</a> of insulating the state from the ravages of Covid-19 behind tightly controlled borders proved a winner with voters. While the measures provoked ire from Liberal Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Qantas chairman Alan Joyce, and a High Court challenge from Queensland mining magnate Clive Palmer, they were popular with mining bosses in the West. Hancock Prospecting, BHP, Woodside and Fortescue Metals Group (FMG) profited handsomely from having mine workers work the Pilbara mines non-stop without the interruption of lockdowns that had plagued industry elsewhere.
McGowan quit unexpectedly mid-term, in May 2023, handing the baton to deputy leader Roger Cook. Back in 1986, during his Murdoch University student days, Cook became the National Union of Student’s first president before becoming a staffer for various Labor politicians. In 2008, he entered state parliament as the member for Kwinana, an industrial suburb south of Perth. Cook became deputy Labor leader ten days later and held senior ministerial posts during the six years of the McGowan government.
When Cook became premier, the state’s mining industry was once again booming. In the wake of the disruption to global trade during the pandemic, commodity prices were sky high. So were mining royalties. The state recorded a $4.2 billion surplus in May 2023 and a $3.2 billion surplus last year.
Spending splurge amidst a cost-of-living crisis
With cash in the bank, the Cook government has been spending heavily on infrastructure. Last year’s budget committed $12.1 billion, including an expansion of Perth’s rail network (Metronet) and spending on healthcare and school infrastructure. 
Election promises included a major upgrade to Royal Perth Hospital, another round of student assistance payments for families with school-age children and an expansion of the school breakfast program. Property developers have been offered substantial subsidies to construct large apartment complexes to <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-02-18/build-to-rent-scheme-western-australia-explainer/104946158">boost rental availability</a>. <a href="https://www.apimagazine.com.au/news/article/wa-premier-announces-home-equity-scheme-expansion-to-improve-access-to-property-ownership">Keystart</a>, a shared equity scheme to assist home ownership, will also receive a funding boost.
However, none of these measures have eased the spiralling costs for working-class people. Under two terms of a Labor government, house prices and rents have soared, making WA an increasingly unaffordable place to live. Since Labor was elected in 2017, <a href="https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/national/western-australia/wa-s-housing-crisis-in-numbers-what-s-changed-since-labor-took-office-in-2017-20250213-p5lbv5.html">average house prices</a> in WA have increased from $564,000 to $913,000. <a href="https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/national/western-australia/wa-s-housing-crisis-in-numbers-what-s-changed-since-labor-took-office-in-2017-20250213-p5lbv5.html">Rental vacancy rates</a> have slumped from 4.7% to 1.4%, resulting in a median rent hike from $365 to $660 per week.
Social housing unit numbers dropped in McGowan’s first term and are now barely above 2017 levels. Forty-four thousand social housing units make up just 3.7 percent of all housing stock in the state. Consequently, Perth has become one of the <a href="https://www.watoday.com.au/national/western-australia/perth-now-one-of-hardest-cities-in-the-world-to-find-a-rental-20240612-p5jl5w.html">worst cities in the developed world</a> for finding a rental, with tenants often bidding well above the advertised rent to secure an abode. 
According to <a href="https://www.shelterwa.org.au/new-figures-support-peak-bodys-election-asks-to-scale-up-on-housing-and-homelessness-solutions/">Shelter WA</a>, 61 people are turned away from emergency accommodation each day, the highest rate in the country. And more working people are experiencing homelessness: 15 percent of those accessing emergency accommodation in WA are employed, up from 10 percent five years ago. 
Liberals anti-woke agenda
Unable to differentiate themselves from Labor on economic policy, the Liberals attempted to mimic Dutton and Trump’s “anti-woke” agenda. Liberal leader Libby Mettam promised to defund the <a href="https://www.edo.org.au/our-funding/">Environmental Defenders Office</a>, stating that “taxpayer money should not be spent propping up activists”. She also <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-01-17/wa-liberal-leader-libby-mettam-aboriginal-flag/104829360">declared</a>
that she would not stand in front of the First Nations’ flags during media conferences. 
Mettam also <a href="https://www.waliberal.org.au/state-news/wa-liberals-will-ban-harmful-gender-treatments-for-children/">promised</a>
to “ban the use of puberty blockers, cross-sex hormone treatments and surgical intervention for children under the age of 16 for the purpose of gender transition”.
This stance backfired spectacularly.
Several Liberal candidates found themselves in hot water for racist, sexist and homophobic comments. The Liberals’ Kimberley candidate, publican Darren Spackman, was forced to stand down after a slew of <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-02-20/wa-liberal-candidate-darren-spackman-withdraws-from-election/104963082">racist social media posts</a> denigrating Aboriginal people were uncovered. 
During an awkward press conference at which the Liberals were set to unveil new domestic violence policies, Darling Range candidate Paul Mansfield was <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-02-22/wa-liberals-endure-bruising-week-as-election-race-gets-tough/104951020">confronted</a>
with what the ABC described as “a series of derogatory social media posts, including homophobic slurs and two lewd posts about women”.
Albany candidate Thomas Brough was <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-07-15/wa-liberal-candiate-thomas-brough-workplace-training-lgbtqi/104090148">ordered</a>
to take workplace training with the Australian Human Rights Commission after making statements linking LGBTQIA+ people with paedophilia. The Medical Board also <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-02-24/wa-liberal-candidate-thomas-brough-referred-to-medical-tribunal/104975970">referred</a>
Brough, a doctor, to the State Administrative Tribunal for his comments.
Unsurprisingly, none of this helped the Liberal Party’s electoral fortunes. While Labor suffered a negative 18 percent swing, the Liberal vote was up only 7.3 percent (after the previous electoral wipeout). The National Party vote climbed only 1.1 percent and One Nation was up 2.4 percent. The Greens’ vote was up 3.6 percent, and votes for independents increased by 2.9 percent.
Labor’s Fremantle upset
Nowhere was voter discontent more starkly demonstrated than in the electorate of Fremantle, where sitting Labor member and industrial relations minister Simone McGurk faced a 22 percent swing against her. Traditionally a working-class seat, Fremantle has been held by Labor for a century—apart from a 2009 byelection upset when it was lost to Greens candidate Adele Carles. Labor regained the seat at the next state election in 2013.
Today, Fremantle is not the working-class suburb it once was. A once lively port city, its old warehouses have been converted into expensive, trendy apartments. Despite its gentrification, however, it has been the site of protests around issues such as homelessness, fracking, AUKUS ship visits and Palestine. 
Though the seat is still too close to call, it appears that McGurk is set to lose to independent Kate Hulett, a Fremantle business owner. Hulett <a href="https://www.kateforfremantle.com/priorities">campaigned</a> on climate action, expanding public and affordable housing and transparency in government dealings with industry. Hulett won support from both traditional Labor and Greens voters for advocating a statewide ban on fracking, a ban on new or expanded fossil fuel projects, the retention of Fremantle as a nuclear-free zone, and opposition to AUKUS. 
While Hulett tailed McGurk’s primary vote, she looks <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/elections/wa/2025/guide/frem">set to win</a>
on Greens preferences. McGurk won 33 percent of the primary vote, compared to 29 percent for Hulett and 16 percent for the Greens. McGurk’s re-election prospects hang narrowly on a flow of Liberal party preferences.
A business-friendly government
The morning after Cook’s thumping election victory, the state’s business tycoons lined up to congratulate the premier and cash-in their election donations. Chamber of Minerals and Energy WA CEO Rebecca Tomkinson and Wesfarmers boss Rob Scott each praised Cook for his contribution to the profitability of their businesses. Cook’s seat of Kwinana is home to Wesfarmers’ new lithium hydroxide refinery.
Scott <a href="https://thewest.com.au/business/manufacturing/praise-for-premier-roger-cooks-storming-election-victory-comes-with-red-tape-warning-from-wa-business--c-17978740">told</a>
the West Australian he looked forward to working with the premier to ensure “competitive, reliable gas for domestic industry”.
“With a seat that covers the Kwinana industrial strip, one of Australia’s leading manufacturing hubs, the premier understands the important role that gas and WA can and will play, to support the climate transition”, Scott said.
Tomkinson <a href="https://thewest.com.au/business/manufacturing/praise-for-premier-roger-cooks-storming-election-victory-comes-with-red-tape-warning-from-wa-business--c-17978740">called on</a> the premier to unlock cheaper electricity and more land, telling the West that Cook must advocate to the federal government for policy that includes “repealing productivity-killing industrial relations reforms and changes to improve and streamline project assessment processes, enhancing environmental outcomes while eliminating duplication and providing certainty over timeframes”.
Cook has already proved his worth to the big end of town, having advocated strongly to kill federal Labor’s proposed (and largely symbolic) “nature positive” legislation that would have enabled the creation of a federal Environmental Protection Agency. In January, Cook <a href="https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/wa-premier-warns-east-coast-latte-sippers-over-nature-positive-laws-20250129-p5l83v">lashed out</a> at Labor backbenchers who continued to push the legislation, telling them:
“Your standard of living, the reason why you can afford your long mac and your lattes, is because of WA industry and the WA economy. Do not for a moment think that we will stand by idly and allow you to damage our economy because, ultimately, it will damage your standard of living. I think the prime minister is highly attuned to the issues which impact on Western Australia’s economy and Western Australian industry.” 
In August 2023, in the middle of the Voice referendum campaign, Cook <a href="https://redflag.org.au/article/wa-labor-capitulates-racist-campaign-against-aboriginal-heritage-law">bowed to</a> mining and pastoral industry pressure to roll back the state’s newly introduced Aboriginal cultural heritage legislation. Acting on behalf of mining interests, the Cook government has also advocated for a watering down of already threadbare native title rights for traditional owners. The Australian
<a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/mining-energy/wa-seeks-changes-to-native-title-act-to-protect-miners/news-story/6a9cd1c05161397ff31818b47ac1e7e4">reports</a>
that current and former state mining ministers have written to the federal government urging amendments to the Native Title Act.
As the dust settles, Albanese will look to WA Labor’s win as an opportunity to spruce up Labor’s credentials in the upcoming federal election. However, Labor has never been and will never be a party that represents the interests of working-class people. The challenge remains to build a serious political alternative.

Nick Everett

Liberals walloped, Labor returned in WA state election

When Jordan van den Lamb, using his online pseudonym “purple pingers”, launched a website for renters to review their rental properties and real estate agents anonymously, he had no idea it would turn him into the “bane of all landlords”. Hating landlords is a big part of his life, however, so it’s a title he wears as an honour. Now, van den Lamb is taking his pro-renter, pro-worker platform to new heights by running for the Australian Senate with the Victorian Socialists in the upcoming federal election.
Shitrentals.org has become a database for renters to get information about potential rental properties that landlords don’t want prospective tenants to know about. Maybe it’s an ad that boasts a carpet floor but fails to mention that it squelches when you walk on it. Or it could be that you can’t bring your pet because a possum is living in the extraction fan. Perhaps you don’t need to bring your plants either, because there’s already one growing out of the kitchen floor. Some reviews have been so damning that landlords have offered him money to take them down—which he always refuses.
Van den Lamb started shitrentals.org for a few simple reasons. First, “the material conditions of the average renter are pretty shit, so you can just point at that and say, ‘That’s bad’”, he says. Second, “there’s really nothing in common between a renter and a member of the ruling class, so renters’ rights are something we can link to a broader struggle against the system”. 
If elected, he plans to be quite the rabble-rouser. “I would shout at so many people; I’d be really excited about that”, he says. “I’d use question time to point the finger at people ... maybe a bit of swearing. I kind of want to see what the cafeteria is like, maybe throw some food at someone. And normal politics stuff, like trying to introduce bills or whatever.” Such a lack of respect for capitalist institutions is refreshing and appeals to many people.
Van den Lamb wants to use the Senate to challenge the anti-worker politics of the mainstream parties while building a movement of renters, students and workers outside of parliament. It’s an openly socialist approach to politics, which acknowledges that real change comes, not through respecting the institutions of capitalism, but by challenging them in all spheres. “If we got a socialist elected to parliament, we could shake some stuff up”, he says.
The campaign has already begun shaking up stuff. In early December, van den Lamb and the Victorian Socialists launched the “Empty Homes Crime Scene” campaign. The campaign involves placing bright yellow stickers on empty homes, exposing them as crime scenes for sitting empty during a housing crisis. 
It got the attention of the landlords, too. The president of the Real Estate Buyers Agent Association of Australia “slammed” it as “quite extremist”. Van den Lamb is also part of the Renters and Housing Union (RAHU), where he has helped to organise empty home occupations. 
They recently occupied three Brunswick homes that had been empty for almost 25 years cumulatively. Also in December, he was on the picket line with striking Woolworths warehouse workers. These are the sorts of actions that van den Lamb would use his Senate position to make even bigger.
“Victorian Socialists isn’t like the other parties, where they ask you to vote once every few years”, he explains. “Politics is something we want you to do every day—at home, on campus, in the workplace, wherever. Get involved.”
The Pingers4Parliament campaign is travelling all across Victoria. After a large forum in Bendigo in January with socialist councillor Owen Cosgriff, the campaign is going to Geelong, Ballarat, Castlemaine, Shepparton and beyond. Van den Lamb wants to bring his left-wing platform to the entire state.
<a href="https://victoriansocialists.org.au/node/364">That platform</a> includes establishing a public builder to construct 1 million new homes, a five-year rent freeze and scrapping negative gearing and the capital gains tax discount. Other policies include putting politicians on a worker’s wage, reversing privatisation, fighting for climate justice and standing in solidarity with the Palestinian people.
Achieving such a vision will not come simply through getting a socialist into parliament—something van den Lamb regularly emphasises. But a socialist in parliament could be a voice for the struggles of ordinary people both inside and outside of parliament. Yelling at Liberals in the Senate in the morning, speaking at a rally in the afternoon, going to an organising meeting in the evening—all in a day’s work for a socialist parliamentarian. 
These are the steps that van den Lamb and the Victorian Socialists are taking to rebuild the socialist movement in Australia.

Tom Sullivan

Pingers4Parliament: the campaign to get a socialist into the Senate

German politics has shifted strongly to the right following the federal election on 23 February. The conservative Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union alliance will now lead a coalition government, after support plummeted for the parties that formed the previous coalition government. They have vowed to introduce hardline anti-migrant policies, attacks on workers and a massive expansion of the military. Even more menacingly, the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) achieved its best result ever, coming in second place with 20.8 percent of the vote.
Since the AfD formed a decade ago, parties from across the political spectrum have insisted they will never work with the far right. The conservatives recently softened this “firewall” by working with the AfD to pass an anti-immigrant bill at the end of January. For years, sections of the conservatives, particularly those in the Christian Social Union in Bavaria, have flirted with the far right, but this was a significant step in normalising the AfD in mainstream politics. The Social Democrats, along with most other political parties, have contributed to this normalisation by drawing on the same anti-migrant rhetoric espoused by the far right. 
The election results reinforce this shift. The conservatives and the AfD hold a clear parliamentary majority. The AfD is campaigning hard for the conservatives to break with the firewall and form a coalition government. The conservatives have ruled this out for now, but there is a very real possibility that it could happen in the years ahead. 
The AfD’s rise is not, however, going unchallenged. Over the last fourteen months, a movement has emerged to resist the far right. Widespread protests broke out in early 2024 after it was revealed that a secret meeting in Potsdam discussed plans for the “remigration”—deportation—of large numbers of migrants and German-born citizens from migrant backgrounds. Alongside the AfD were members of the ultra-right-wing faction of the conservatives.
Protests outside AfD offices grew from the thousands to hundreds of thousands. On 3 February, an estimated 300,000 marched in Berlin alone. By April, the German daily newspaper taz reported that more than 1,800 protests involving around 4 million people had taken place across the country. These protests were the biggest since those opposing the Iraq war in 2003, and among the largest in postwar German history. 
Once the initial wave of protests subsided, left-wing activists continued to organise and mobilise. New organisations emerged, including the Studis gegen Rechts (Students against the Right), and older anti-fascist organisations found new life as thousands of young people got involved. 
Last June, tens of thousands descended on the city of Essen to protest the AfD’s annual conference. Police were drafted from around the country to try to stop the 70,000 protesters from disrupting the event. This year, the conference was moved to the regional town of Riesa, Saxony, to try to avoid demonstrations. Nevertheless, 15,000 protesters travelled there to take a stand against the far right. 
A new wave of protests erupted after the conservatives and the far right teamed up on the anti-migrant bill. Thousands blockaded the offices of the Christian Democratic Union in Berlin. At an AfD event in Freiburg, 25,000 out of a population of 230,000 came out to protest. 
A significant section of people taking part in these protests have gravitated towards the left-wing Die Linke party. In the federal election Die Linke, which had suffered a crisis for several years, revived and won 8.7 percent of the vote. Around 30,000 new members joined the party over the last year, numbers accelerating following the conservative-far right collaboration.
Heidi Reichinnek, one of Die Linke’s parliamentary leaders, stridently attacked the Christian Democrats for “paving the way for the resurgence of fascism” in a video that was viewed more than 30 million times on TikTok. Thousands of new activists joined Die Linke’s campaign in the West Berlin district of Neukölln. They won a landslide victory for Ferat Koçak, a pro-Palestine activist with a Kurdish background. 
Die Linke did particularly well amongst young people, becoming the most popular party for those aged 18 to 24, and securing the votes of more than a third of young women. The party also came first in Berlin. 
It’s positive that the AfD’s high vote isn’t the only story coming out of the election. However, there are significant problems with Die Linke. This is not a new radical party: it has existed since 2007 and is led by veteran moderate reformist politicians. It has participated in coalition state governments in Bremen and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, and it led the government in Thuringia for a decade. In these states, it oversaw neoliberal budgets and allowed refugees to be deported. 
While Die Linke positions itself as an activist opposition party, it is also open to forming a future coalition government. There has long been a Zionist wing of Die Linke. and moderate leftists like Reichinnek emphasise that they support Israel’s so-called “right to defend itself”. Last December, Die Linke expelled the pro-Palestine activist Ramsis Kilani for “bringing the party into disrepute”.
This is not a radical anti-capitalist party by any stretch of the imagination. However, despite these serious problems, the electoral support for the left, as well as the activism against the far right, reveals that there is a polarisation to the left in Germany, centred on young people, that cuts against the grain of the overall conservative shift. 
This is vital. The far right is winning ground in country after country. It can be easy to despair in the face of this, particularly when there doesn’t appear to be a spontaneous revolt against Trump and his ilk. As in the past, though, it is the actions of a radical minority that can begin the process of creating the larger left-wing opposition we need. Hopefully, that is what we are seeing amongst young people in Germany.

Jordan Humphreys

The right gains ground in Germany, but not without challenge

The next chancellor of Germany will be the former Blackrock consultant Friedrich Merz. His election comes alongside a surge in votes for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) and 93 years after a similar figure, Franz von Papen, ascended to the German chancellorship. Merz’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its Bavarian sister, the Christian Social Union (CSU), <a href="https://www.zeit.de/politik/deutschland/2025-02/bundestagswahl-2025-wahlergebnisse-wahlkreise-live">picked up 28.5 percent</a> of the vote, more than any other party but still one of its worst results in the history of the German Federal Republic.
Germany’s former ruling “traffic light” coalition—consisting of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), the Greens and the economically liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP)—collapsed in November 2024, prompting this month’s elections. The former ruling parties all suffered heavy losses. The SPD received just 16.4 percent of the vote, its worst result in more than 60 years, while the FDP lost all 91 of its Bundestag seats and the Greens lost more than one-quarter of their representatives.
The biggest gains were made by the AfD, a far-right ethnonationalist party that has been <a href="https://www.rosalux.de/en/news/id/49924">radicalising</a> and gaining ground in regional parliaments for more than ten years. The party dominated the eastern states of the former German Democratic Republic, earning one out of every three votes there and more than 20 percent of votes nationally. The AfD is the spearhead of fascisation in Germany, pulling almost all other parties toward the right, especially on migrant and refugee politics.
In a surprise turnaround, Germany’s far-left party Die Linke soared past expectations to win 8.8 percent of the vote, buoyed by an influx of 30,000 new party members this year. It is now the strongest party in Berlin, the capital, and won its first-ever district west of the old Berlin Wall: Neukölln, the heart of the Palestine solidarity protests. 
Political polarisation
With the exception of Die Linke, the election campaign was dominated by a full-spectrum lurch to the right as parties tried to keep up with the AfD’s racism and anti-migrant politics. Underneath the official party positions, though, political polarisation has continued in German society.
A pivotal moment came at the end of January when the CDU introduced a harsh anti-migrant bill, knowing it would require AfD votes to become law. Although the bill failed to pass, the attempt broke a consensus among parties never to cooperate with the far-right party. Despite an outcry in the media, Merz subsequently <a href="https://x.com/AnAudretsch/status/1886053338052956376">made it clear</a>
that the CDU would continue to operate with the tacit support of the AfD, signalling the end of the “firewall” against fascism and, thereby, also the end of a basic binding consensus in German politics since the founding of the federal republic after the defeat of the Nazis in World War Two.
While all other parties were complicit, either by directly voting for the bill (FDP, BSW) or by implementing almost identical policies while in office (SPD, Greens), only Die Linke put forward an alternative. <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@dielinkebt/video/7465417523383799063">Footage of Linke chancellor candidate Heidi Reichinnek</a> excoriating Friedrich Merz on the floor of the Bundestag went viral, tapping into a deep wellspring of disgust with fascism and with the other parties for failing to do anything about its rise. “The firewall in this country remains us, and all of us will go to the streets”, Reichinnek declared, “to the barricades!”
Tens of thousands of young people joined Die Linke in the aftermath, forming a veritable electoral army of doorknocking activists. Despite its stunning results, Die Linke’s prior record of helping to administer austerity in regional governments, its contradictory approach to foreign policy, and the many failures of its leaders to stand with the Palestine solidarity mobilisation leave questions for the future of the party.
Germany’s polarisation proceeds according to the same dynamics as in the United States, Brazil, France, or any number of other countries today: the dynamics of class conflict.
How we got here
Germany has an <a href="https://adamtooze.substack.com/p/chartbook-254-crazy-rich-germans">extremely wealthy elite</a> and high levels of inequality—the two richest German families own more wealth than the bottom half of the population. As the economy slows, the ruling class increasingly sees the path back to profitability running to the right.
The old “export model” of German international competitiveness has <a href="https://www.rosalux.de/en/news/id/51534/the-german-economy-is-at-a-crossroads">faced roadblocks</a> for some time, but it entered a crisis under SPD Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s watch. The German economic model was upended by the combined effects of the Covid crisis, China’s mass exports of electric cars, and the energy price shock caused by the loss of cheap Russian gas. (Russia invaded Ukraine just two months after the traffic light coalition took office.) The country entered a recession that led to <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/be1460c6-7d10-4518-8cc3-82bda78ab179">rapidly falling industrial output</a>, layoffs in auto, chemicals and other industries, and skyrocketing energy and housing costs for residents.
Employers called for scrapping green energy transition plans and adopting traditional means of reviving the economy. Despite some <a href="https://zeitschrift-luxemburg.de/artikel/halt-auf-halber-strecke/">inconsistent social reforms</a> instituted during his administration, Scholz’s government responded to employers primarily by slashing social services and the climate fund. 
Further, despite rhetorical denunciations of Merz’s dalliance with the AfD, Scholz’s coalition was central to implementing extremely harsh European-wide anti-migrant and anti-refugee laws in the last five years through the Common European Asylum System. As the Green Foreign Minister Baerbock put it bluntly to Merz on the floor of the Bundestag: “What can you get with the AfD that we didn’t already do through the CEAS?”
The CDU and AfD are both fiercely committed to serving the wealthy. Their common program <a href="https://www.surplusmagazin.de/merz-weidel-koalition-wirtschaftspolitik/">includes</a>
lowering taxes on the rich, strictly adhering to the “debt brake” (which limits government borrowing and therefore leads to covering costs with cuts to social welfare), slashing wages and basic income protections and reasserting heteronormative nuclear families by cutting parental support subsidies and parental leave and further dismantling childcare infrastructure.
Within the CDU, Merz has been central to a shift away from former leader Angela Merkel’s “soft conservatism” towards a more far-right platform. The refashioned Christian party <a href="https://www.marx21.de/ampel-regierungskrise-rechtsruck-und-die-notwendigen-konsequenzen/">seeks</a>
to re-cement a German cultural identity centred on belonging to the homeland. It aims to get rid of asylum rights, raise the retirement age and re-equip the German military. In all of this, it follows the AfD, the ethnonationalism of which has masked its leaders’ willingness to meet <a href="https://www.jungewelt.de/artikel/494120.wirtschaft-und-wahlversprechen-die-wirtschaft-w%C3%BCnscht.html">the demands of German capitalists</a> for a new employers’ offensive to restore German global competitiveness.
Although the AfD has reduced its internal disputes significantly, competing wings remain within the party. The neo-Nazi wing around Björn Höcke and Maximilian Krah is aiming to destroy the CDU and inherit its role as the largest party on the right. The market-radical wing around Alice Weidel (the AfD candidate for chancellor in this election) quickly shed its US scepticism after Donald Trump came to office and is committed to dramatically increasing military spending. As Elon Musk’s appearance at the AfD convention and US Vice President JD Vance’s outright campaign for the AfD at the Munich security conference indicate, the AfD is aligning more and more with Trump’s push to split Europe and make deals with individual countries while shifting some of the military burden.
The next government
Merz’s party has a few options to cobble together a ruling coalition, which he has promised to do by Easter, but the negotiating process will be messy. Merz has invited the SPD to talks, and a “Grand Coalition” of the two parties could technically manage a majority in the Bundestag. But as Ingar Solty has <a href="https://www.berliner-zeitung.de/kultur-vergnuegen/gruene-und-afd-sind-einander-sehr-aehnlich-auch-wenn-sie-das-nicht-hoeren-wollen-li.2293416">pointed out</a>, a CDU coalition with the SPD and/or the Greens will be effectively instrumentalised by the AfD in opposition, feeding its narrative of the interchangeability of all establishment parties.
A CDU/AfD coalition could command a majority and a largely shared program. But it is highly unlikely as it would cause massive outcry and position the CDU against the cross-party political consensus, risking defections from the more liberal upper classes. Then there is the (also unlikely) option that Merz forms a minority government supported by the votes of the AfD, which is nevertheless not formally part of a governing coalition.
Merz does not have a long-term vision. His project is to assert the short-term needs of capitalists against social majorities and the long-term sustainability of the country (and the planet). As Adam Tooze has <a href="https://www.surplusmagazin.de/tooze-globalisierung-trump-musk-merz/">pointed out</a>, Merz has no real plan for Europe when confronted with Trump’s dramatic new challenges. The CDU leader’s unswerving commitment to “balanced budgets” means any investments in infrastructure, research or other means of capitalist growth will have to be paid for by cutting spending in other areas.
As such, the CDU election platform envisioned incentives for capitalists at the cost of the environment and social welfare. A CDU-SPD-Green government may face difficulties implementing such a program, given that these were precisely the lines on which the former coalition government split. In a<a href="https://www.welt.de/politik/deutschland/article255475792/Bundestagswahl-Merz-nennt-Koalitionsbedingungen-Scholz-will-CDU-Chef-mit-AfD-Frage-in-Bedraengnis-bringen-TV-Duell-zum-Nachlesen.html">
televised debate</a>, Merz also made agreement on attacking migrant rights a condition of entering a coalition.
Regardless of its composition, the new government will be anti-worker and anti-migrant. Any opposition to this course will come not from the other parties of a coalition government, but from the left.
Prospects for the left
Despite the bleak years to come under a conservative government, the revitalisation of Die Linke as a social force in Germany has led to at least some celebrations before the true work restarts. 
After Sahra Wagenknecht split from the party to form the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW), Die Linke achieved a meagre 2.7 percent in the 2024 European elections. The BSW, by contrast, won 6.2 percent of the vote. In the intervening period, however, the BSW joined state governments in Thuringia and Brandenburg, and took on increasingly anti-migrant positions in a <a href="https://jacobin.com/2017/03/die-linke-germany-immigration-sahra-wagenknecht-oscar-lafontaine-afd-merkel">failed attempt</a> to appeal to AfD voters. In these new elections, Wagenknecht’s party fell just short of the required votes to enter the Bundestag, a result that is likely to be contested.
Die Linke’s principled stand on migration and its socialist platform allowed it to speak confidently to hundreds of thousands of Germans and become the <a href="https://www.tagesschau.de/wahl/archiv/2025-02-23-BT-DE/umfrage-werwas.shtml">strongest party</a> among young and first-time voters.
However, many challenges remain. Until now, Die Linke has operated as a left-reformist organisation with small groups of revolutionaries fighting for a movement- and worker-oriented party from within. But the parliamentary fraction and the party apparatus are dominated by careerist reformists <a href="https://www.counterfire.org/article/where-is-germany-s-die-linke-heading/">more interested</a> in participating in coalition governments with the SPD and Greens than in building mass movements to change German society. Participation in various state governments led Die Linke to implement austerity, carry out deportations, attack workers and compromise on a range of issues.
While the Die Linke stronghold in Neukölln, Berlin, has been a militant pro-Palestine presence, other parts of the party have sided with apartheid Israel; Die Linke’s parliamentary fraction voted in 2023 to stand unswervingly with Israel as well. Just like in the US, Germany’s unconditional support for Israel has created a <a href="https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/the-boomerang-comes-back/">boomerang</a>
of colonial violence that is coming back to the metropole in various forms. Insofar as Die Linke <a href="https://www.sozialismus-von-unten.org/ramsis-kilani-ausgeschlossen-die-linke-gegen-aktive-solidaritaet-mit-palaestina/">actively participated</a> in Germany’s severe culture of repression against Palestine solidarity movements, it <a href="https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/germany-election-afd-israel-palestine-free-speech?utm_source=post-email-title&amp;publication_id=2510348&amp;post_id=157681412&amp;utm_campaign=email-post-title&amp;isFreemail=true&amp;r=79ysj&amp;triedRedirect=true&amp;utm_medium=email">helped pave the way</a> for some of the success of the AfD.
But Die Linke shows signs of potential change. Its base is expanding from the old strongholds of the east toward the entire country. Emerging figures show that Die Linke performed well not only in large cities, but also in many smaller towns, laying the basis for party organisations to potentially re-form there. Neukölln was won by Palestine solidarity organiser Ferat Kocak, who the German press <a href="https://archive.ph/x8kq1">denounces</a> as an anti-police activist with ties to the Trotskyists. The slogan under which Die Linke campaigned during this election was “everyone wants to govern, we want to change things”, a nod towards the importance of building an opposition outside of government power.
Most importantly, the 30,000 new party members could substantially overhaul the previously stagnating inner-party life. Incorporating these mostly young members into party and movement structures is by no means an automatic process and will take a conscious effort and some time, during which a process of mutual political education can be expected. 
One thing is certain: if Die Linke has any hope of avoiding slipping back into the social democratic swamp, it will have to forthrightly articulate a mass socialist alternative to the rightward drift in Germany, including on questions of imperialism and Palestine. As many party organisers know well, it will also have to develop stronger ties to Germany’s working class and supplant the “brown neoliberalism” of the AfD with a vision and a plan for socialist internationalism and workers’ power. 
Pressured by both geopolitical shifts and the profit-making priorities of its own ruling class, the conservative politicians at the helm of the German state have limited options within their self-defined capitalist paradigm: either eliminate the restrictions on issuing new debt (which is the position of Die Linke) or succumb to the capitalists’ demands to redistribute tax revenue away from social programs towards capital subsidies and an increased military. 
If it’s the latter, the social balance that has teetered since 2022 will no longer hold. Social upheaval is coming to Germany. Whether it is organised and rooted in the working class will determine the outcome: socialism or barbarism.
Sean Larson is a member of the Tempest Collective in the US and a founding editor of Rampant Magazine.

Sean Larson

Far-right surges, but left surprises, in German elections

Victorian Socialists (VS) is the largest-scale socialist political project in Australia for decades. There is no other project in which hundreds of socialists—including members of Socialist Alternative and many others—have conversations with literally thousands of working-class people and all comers, over a period of weeks in election campaigns like the one the party just waged in the western Melbourne electorate of Werribee. 
We get some idea of how those conversations have gone by looking at the party’s vote. In the case of Werribee, it was high enough to leave pundits and rival political parties scratching their heads. What unfathomable secret, they wonder, can explain how an area with close to zero history of serious socialist political activity could deliver a very creditable 7.1 percent of the first-preference vote to VS’s Werribee candidate Sue Munro (up from 3.7 percent in the 2022 Victorian state election)? 
The final tally of 3,010 votes was fewer than 200 behind the Greens, who had the benefit of a political profile established over decades (as well as, in the case of Werribee, getting the donkey vote—the number one spot on a ballot paper listing twelve candidates in total). At a couple of booths VS scored 14 percent of all votes cast, coming third behind Labor and the Liberals. “It’s not all great for the Liberals, the socialists got a bigger swing”, the Australian Financial Review moaned in an <a href="https://www.facebook.com/share/p/15ndxHKFYj/">online headline</a>
reflecting on the Werribee result. 
Melbourne’s Age newspaper described our decent result as a “<a href="https://x.com/vic_socialists/status/1888178135075803397">surprise packet</a>”. But it’s no surprise to anyone involved with VS that a socialist message of rage, hope and resistance can strike a chord among thousands of people in the working-class heartlands of Melbourne, and beyond. 
Campaigning for Victorian Socialists gets us into conversations with rage-filled healthcare workers about the state of our hospitals and the slide to privatised health care; with voters appalled at Israel’s genocide in Palestine and Labor’s complicity in it; and with union members disappointed by the lack of fight from what should be the strongest organisations our side has. 
A minority are already committed socialists, delighted to encounter a party that takes working-class politics and working-class people seriously. Many more have never met an active socialist before but can relate to our sincerity, our political conviction and our basic propositions: that it’s crazy that billionaires keep doubling their wealth when it’s working-class people who do all the work around here; that we shouldn’t tolerate being sold out by Labor, which keeps the capitalists’ profits piling up while throwing crumbs (at best) to the rest of us; that everything is the wrong way up in this society; and though we’re not promising to solve every problem, we’re serious about helping working-class people organise and fight back. 
Our Werribee result was no one-off. In Victoria’s 2022 state election, more than 52,000 people voted for VS in the upper house and 48,000 in the lower house. You have to go back to the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1943_Victorian_state_election">1940s</a> to find a socialist electoral campaign in Victoria that got anywhere near that number of votes. As the lead VS candidate in the Northern Metro upper house region in 2022, I received just 300 fewer primary votes than the eventual winner of the final of five seats. In the Western Metro region, VS candidate Liz Walsh came even closer to being elected, though both of us missed out after preferences. 
Given how far socialist ideas have been pushed to the margins in this country, this was a real achievement—and a solid contribution to bringing socialism back into everyday political life. We built on our 2022 campaign in last year’s local council elections—winning 67,296 first preference votes, with an average vote share of 10.8 percent for each ward we ran in. Owen Cosgriff was elected as a VS councillor in Bendigo with more than 40 percent of first preferences.
Our goal in winning positions in local councils and parliaments is not to rain socialism down upon a grateful and passive public. Rather, it’s the opposite: we aim to use those platforms to promote every strike, protest and act of collective resistance, and to build the politics of intransigent opposition to capitalism and to the exploitation, wars and oppression that the system produces and feeds off. 
It’s not like we’re waiting around to win parliamentary seats to play a positive role in the resistance though. In 2022, <a href="https://redflag.org.au/article/reproductive-freedom-precondition-equality-interview-liz-walsh">15,000 people</a> answered a call-out from VS Western Metro candidate Liz Walsh to rally for abortion rights after the US Supreme Court scrapped Roe v Wade. We’ve been <a href="https://victoriansocialists.org.au/campaigns/palestine">active in solidarity</a> with the people of Palestine throughout Israel’s Gaza genocide. When Woolworths workers put out a call for <a href="https://www.theage.com.au/politics/victoria/protesters-block-entry-to-woolworths-warehouse-as-grocery-shortages-continue-20241202-p5kv0m.html">picket line support</a> during their recent strike, a couple of hundred Victorian Socialist members and supporters <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/DDDp0_3Tbhm/?img_index=4">joined</a> the pre-dawn picket line at Dandenong South. 
All this activity sits alongside Victorian Socialists’ success in waging large-scale and effective electoral campaigns, as a contribution to rebuilding socialist political forces. Our next major opportunity to do this is in the rapidly approaching federal election. 
High-profile housing activist Jordan van den Lamb (aka purplepingers) has become the hero of renters and the scourge of Australia’s landlords through his <a href="https://www.shitrentals.org/">shitrentals.org</a>
website and his viral <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@purplepingers?lang=en">tiktoks</a>. Victorian Socialists is proud to have Jordan as our lead Senate candidate. Anyone across the state of Victoria can play a role in the <a href="https://pingers4parliament.com/">pingers4parliament</a> campaign. We’re also running lower house candidates in the seats of Fraser in Melbourne’s west, Cooper and Scullin in the north, and the regional seat of Bendigo.
We’ve already kicked off the campaigning. Whatever your level of experience, there’s an important role for everyone—letterboxing, doorknocking and helping organise events. <a href="https://victoriansocialists.org.au/join">Signing up to be a member of Victorian Socialists</a> is the best way to contribute and to get involved. Find an event on our <a href="https://victoriansocialists.org.au/join">website</a>
or <a href="https://www.instagram.com/vic_socialists/?hl=en">socials</a>, and bring your friends.
Anyone serious about fighting for socialism needs to take opportunities to expand the reach of socialist ideas, to inspire more resistance to capitalism and to convince more people to become active socialists. Victorian Socialists makes a valuable contribution to each of these projects—so jump on board and get active!

Jerome Small

Victorian Socialists: putting socialism on the political map

Werribee, known for its zoo and mansion, is a booming suburb located 30 kilometres from the Melbourne city centre. Labor has represented the area at a state level since 2002, during which the population has doubled. Despite this growth, the working-class residents of Werribee have been left to rot, abandoned by the very political party that claims to represent them. 
As a social worker in the area, I have seen these issues firsthand. I have watched families struggling to survive in a system that fails them repeatedly. Whether it’s finding affordable housing, waiting months for medical care or struggling to navigate broken public transport systems, I’ve witnessed families unable to access the basics of life. I’ve seen parents break down over their inability to afford school supplies for their children or make impossible choices between paying rent and buying food. These are not isolated incidents. They are the result of a system that leaves the working class to fend for itself while the powers that be prioritise corporate profits and marginal seats.
In the lead-up to the 8 February Werribee by-election, many candidates have jumped upon the fear-mongering narrative of rising youth crime and community safety, pushing for an increased police presence and harsher laws as the solution. 
Victorian Labor has already allocated $419 million to the construction of the Cherry Creek Youth Detention Centre in Little River, part of the seat of Werribee. The original plan was to build it in Werribee South, but the location was changed after a protest by more than 3000 residents in 2017. 
The government has also funnelled $271 million into building the Wyndham Law Courts, right next to the Werribee Police Complex. The new courts, which will house a Children’s Court and a Magistrates Court, are set to become the largest of their kind in Victoria outside Melbourne’s CBD. 
While hundreds of millions are funnelled into the punishment of young people, the same cannot be said for the critical services that could help prevent crime and build a sense of community. The lack of investment in community infrastructure deepens the alienation that contributes to anti-social behaviour. Without safe, accessible spaces for recreation, education or social engagement, young people are more likely to be drawn into criminal activity and substance abuse. 
In Werribee, the Kelly Park Community Centre, one of two library and community hubs in the area, is set for demolition following a fire, despite an overwhelming majority of residents voting for its restoration. Many residents argue that the decision to demolish the centre is not necessary, but the result of poor management and official disregard for the role the centre played in the community. Before the fire, it was the heart of social life for youth, the elderly and cultural communities, offering a safe space and essential services. 
Despite its central role, the council has claimed that restoring it is financially unviable. The rebuild was estimated at $8 million—with the $690 million spent on the new detention centre and courts, the state government could build 82 new community centres and 20 new libraries. Funds are instead spent by the state on repressive measure that criminalise and isolate the very communities in need of support.
It’s the same story with other infrastructure: there is only one aquatic centre per 48,000 residents in the City of Wyndham, which takes in Werribee, compared to one per 5,000 residents in inner Melbourne. The proportion of households in the west that include children is higher than the state-wide average (52.1 percent compared to 45.5 percent), yet library access is much worse. There are only 1.48 libraries per 100,000 residents in Wyndham, compared to 5.64 per 100,000 in Stonnington in the inner east or 5.46 in inner city Yarra.
The issue of chronic underfunding goes beyond libraries and community centres. It also extends to health and education. Mercy Hospital Werribee is smaller than most metropolitan hospitals and has the longest emergency wait times in the state, 60 percent of patients not being seen within the recommended time frame. 
There are likewise only two public high schools in Werribee, serving a population of 50,00. Before recent repairs of Werribee Secondary College, the schools were plagued by crumbling infrastructure, with some buildings infested with maggots and posing serious fire hazards. I’ve seen firsthand the challenges faced by teachers. They are routinely tasked with overcrowded classrooms and given limited resources to support children living in poverty, dealing with trauma and often coming from migrant backgrounds. Teachers are stretched thin, overworked and struggling to meet the needs of their students. As a result, already vulnerable children are not receiving the quality education they deserve. According to the Department of Education, the Wyndham area has one of the highest teacher vacancy rates in Victoria. 
Public transport is also woefully inadequate, the area being served by just one train line and an unreliable bus system. As a result, 80 percent of households are forced to own two cars, a significant expense made necessary by the lack of public transport.
While the government continues to funnel resources into punitive measures like new prisons and courts, it neglects desperately needed investments in housing, public transport and essential infrastructure. Property developers, meanwhile, profit from poorly planned urban sprawl that leaves working-class communities to suffer the consequences. 
The upcoming by-election will be a chance for residents to send a message to the Labor government. Victorian Socialists are contesting the seat and offer a radically different agenda to the major parties. The party’s candidate, Sue Munro, is a parent and nurse and is committed to fighting for the rights of Werribee’s working-class residents. The real change we need won’t come from the same political forces that have failed us for decades—it will come from a movement dedicated to putting people before profit and challenging the systems that takes working-class people for granted.

Rayan Hassan

Werribee: left to rot by Labor

Lance Selfa, a Chicago-based socialist, is the author of The Democrats: A Critical History and editor of US Politics in an Age of Uncertainty: Essays on a New Reality. Now that the dust has begun to settle on the presidential election results, he looks at some of the conclusions that should and should not be drawn.
--------------------
Flush with election night news that he had won the presidential election fair-and-square, Donald Trump took to the stage at his victory rally to assert: “America has given us an unprecedented and powerful mandate”. The next day, Republican congressional Representative Elise Stefanik, a Trump lickspittle, declared: “We the people made our voices heard by re-electing President Trump in a historic landslide”. Trump rewarded Stefanik’s fealty with an appointment as US ambassador to the United Nations.
On the Democratic Party side of the political spectrum, <a href="https://www.blackagendareport.com/liberal-arrogance-and-hatred-display-after-trump-victory">despair mixed with lashing out at</a> millions of “stupid” and “selfish” Americans who supported Trump. As always, social media brought out the worst, of which this was just one small example:
“I hope every woman who voted for Trump and lives in a no abortion state gets what they wanted. To bleed out in a parking lot due to a miscarriage and no doctor will help you because THAT’S what you voted for. Y’all deserve it.”
Even <a href="https://x.com/HowKeen/status/1859194744938594495">Rachel Bitecofer,</a> a political scientist turned Democratic Party consultant, condemned Uncommitted movement adviser Waleed Shahid with the indefensible statement: “I probably won’t be able to stop the Schadenfreude when Shahid gets deported”.
Did Americans vote for authoritarianism, misogyny and racism? Is that who Americans “are”? Millions certainly are avid supporters of Trump and, at the very least, don’t consider his racism and misogyny disqualifying. But it’s harder to extend those observations to all Americans—or even to the 64 percent of eligible voters who cast a ballot.
As more votes are sorted, it becomes much clearer that Trump’s victory, far from being a landslide, was quite narrow. When the count is finalised nationwide, more voters will have chosen someone other than the bigoted billionaire. At the time of writing, the president-elect had corralled 49.8 percent of all ballots, meaning that more than 50 percent of voters chose either Harris or a third-party candidate. In fact, Trump’s victory is the seventh narrowest (about 1.6 percentage points in vote share higher than Harris) in 51 presidential elections going back to the 1820s.
When compared to the 2020 election, we see a mirror image. In each election, the incumbent president was turfed out, and the winning candidate’s party lost ground but prevailed as the majority in the House of Representatives and narrowly won the Senate. Trump and the Republicans certainly won, but the margin of their victories doesn’t suggest a fundamental reordering of US mainstream politics.
That doesn’t mean that the Trump administration won’t try to act on its most reactionary, authoritarian and venal impulses. <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/11/11/americans-elected-trump-they-might-not-like-what-comes-next/">But those actions won’t embody “the will of the people”—even of those who voted.</a>
To take a couple of examples: exit polls showed that support for abortion rights exceeds support for either major party candidate. And clearly, millions of people who support abortion rights also voted for Trump. If the Trump administration pushes through a national abortion ban, it won’t be because it was acting on an anti-abortion “mandate”.
Second, exit polls showed that while most voters support “mass deportation” of the undocumented, more significant majorities support providing the undocumented with a path to US citizenship. When people are asked if undocumented residents who have lived and worked in the US for decades should be deported, support for “mass deportation” evaporates.
Despite what the pundit “hot takes” and “instant analyses” say, the simplest explanation for the election result is that millions of people were dissatisfied with the Biden administration’s economic management, and enough of them decided either to vote for Trump or to not to vote for Harris (more on this later).
And that’s the judgment of the estimated 155 million people who voted—out of a voting-eligible population of just under 245 million. When the counting is completed, Trump is expected to net about 77.8 million votes and Harris about 75 million. Trump’s total will be about 4 million fewer than Biden received in 2020. Meanwhile, about 90 million people who could have voted didn’t. In other words, the “party of non-voters” is the winner again—as it has been in every election since the post-Civil War era.
Research over the years has shown that these non-voters tend to be younger, not college educated, lower income and people of colour. They don’t pay much attention to politics, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have political opinions. One of the reasons they tune out of mainstream politics, <a href="https://knightfoundation.org/press/releases/new-study-sheds-light-on-the-100-million-americans-who-dont-vote-their-political-views-and-what-they-think-about-2020/">according to a large 2020 study</a>, is because they have little trust in politicians or the system to do anything that will change their lives for the better. They are more likely to consider the system “rigged” than those who cast ballots.
An <a href="https://apnews.com/projects/election-2024-our-very-complicated-democracy/election-2024-why-americans-dont-vote-episode-6.html">October Associated Press story</a> showed these sentiments were alive in 2024. It recounted an encounter between a voter registration organiser and Earl Jones, a 73-year-old Detroit resident who said he survives on Social Security and “hustling” and hasn’t voted since the 1970s. “I ain’t voting for nobody unless we see somebody go do something for us, and not just for me, for everybody—you, him and him”, Jones said, pointing to people around him. “If they do something for us, it’ll be alright. If they don’t, the hell with it.”
This sentiment reduced the turnout for Kamala Harris. While the media maps of the vote showed a “red shift” to Republicans in most of the country, Harris lost the most ground in urban Democratic Party strongholds. A <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2024/11/23/city-turnout-black-hispanic-neighborhoods-00191354">Politico analysis</a> of precinct data in “swing-state” urban areas showed major declines in Democratic turnout from 2020. In swing-state precincts with African American populations of 85 percent or more, Harris lost more than 17,000 votes compared to Biden’s total in 2020, while Trump gained about 3,500 votes in the same precincts. Politico showed a similar pattern in swing-state precincts that were more than 85 percent Latino.
And those data are from the seven swing states, where both campaigns focused the entirety of their campaigns. In those states, the popular vote split between the Democrats and Republicans shifted 2.5 to 3 percentage points to the Republicans, compared to 2020 results. In fact, Harris won more votes than Biden did in four of them (Wisconsin, Georgia, Nevada, and North Carolina). Nationally, the shift was about 5.5 to 6 percentage points compared to 2020. The decline of the <a href="https://www.semafor.com/article/11/15/2024/democratic-turnout-plummeted-in-2024-but-only-in-safe-states">Democratic presidential vote in non-swing states</a> such as California, New York and Illinois, and the increase in Republican votes in Texas and Florida, accounts for the bulk of the national popular vote shift.
These figures illustrate the absurdity of the electoral college system of electing a president. A multi-billion-dollar presidential campaign that essentially ignores 43 of 50 states doesn’t have to address itself to the mass of working people clustered in the largest and most diverse cities such as New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston and Tampa. It’s why so much post-election commentary magnifies as significant changes what are small shifts among voters in a handful of states.
Widening the lens on the election result provides more perspective. Do most Americans really want an authoritarian theocracy that architects of the conservative <a href="https://www.aclu.org/project-2025-explained">Project 2025</a> promise? Did they get to vote for what they really want?
The 2020 study quoted above noted that about one in five non-voters say they would vote for a third party if they did vote. And, for about two decades, <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/651278/support-third-political-party-dips.aspx">opinion polls have</a> shown majorities of Americans believe a third party is needed because the two major parties don’t “do an adequate job” of representing the people. In 2024, however, third-party support was low by historical standards, and the Democrats couldn’t blame the Green Party or the independent campaign of Cornel West for costing them the election.
The money-soaked US electoral system managed to do what it always seems to do in presidential years: present an increasingly dissatisfied electorate with two capitalist parties—one an increasingly authoritarian, theocratic party (the Republicans) and the other a centre-right party of the status quo (the Democrats). That’s the way the plutocrats and oligarchs behind both parties like it. The Elon Musks and Richard Uihleins on the Republican side and the Michael Bloombergs and Reid Hoffmans on the Democratic side aren’t about to <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/i-worked-democrats-years-billionaires-have-unfettered-influence-opinion-1961471">finance a real political challenge to their dominance of the US political economy</a>. Social commentator <a href="https://freddiedeboer.substack.com/p/if-the-democrats-want-to-win-someday">Freddie deBoer,</a> who voted for the Green Party’s Jill Stein in Connecticut, drew this conclusion: 
“A country with a two-party system that include[s] a far-right party and a center-right party is a country that will inevitably move in a far-right direction. And not [pundits] Jon Favreau nor Gail Collins nor Matt Yglesias nor Jon Chait nor the New York Times editorial board nor Hillary Clinton herself nor any other of the tongue-cluckers have a response to that fact. Because they’ve assumed away any possibility of positive change; they know they’re stuck. That’s the other thing almost nobody did [on election day]: articulate any path for the country to get better. You can’t, because better can’t emerge from this rotten system.”
There’s no use in sugar-coating the election result. But it’s also important to remember that most positive social change in US history didn’t come from elections. It came from the struggles of ordinary people. This may not seem to be on the cards right now, but history hasn’t “ended”. The great peoples’ historian Howard Zinn put it well:
“The Constitution gave no rights to working people; no right to work less than 12 hours a day, no right to a living wage, no right to safe working conditions. Workers had to organize, go on strike, defy the law, the courts, the police, create a great movement which won the eight-hour day, and caused such commotion that Congress was forced to pass a minimum wage law, and Social Security, and unemployment insurance….Those rights only come alive when citizens organize, protest, demonstrate, strike, boycott, rebel and violate the law in order to uphold justice.”

Lance Selfa

Most people didn’t vote for Trump, or Harris

The <a href="https://www.vec.vic.gov.au/results/2024-council-election-results">results are in</a> from Victoria’s local council elections, which took place via postal ballot in October, and there’s some good news for socialists. Victorian Socialists (VS) ran a much bigger campaign than in the last elections in 2020, standing candidates in 78 council wards, mainly across Melbourne but in a number of regional areas too. The party’s candidates received a total of 67,296 first preference votes, up from 20,210 in 2020, with an average vote share of 10.8 percent.
Had VS achieved a result like this under the old, multi-member council ward system, it’s very likely a whole new crop of five or ten socialist councillors would have been elected. This time, though, thanks to changes initiated in 2020 by the then Labor Party minister for local government and subsequently <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/jul/20/ministers-breached-codes-in-blatant-and-extraordinary-misuse-of-public-funds-to-fuel-branch-stacking-ibac-finds">disgraced branch stacker</a> Adem Somyurek, the elections were held in single-member wards across Melbourne (with the exception of Melbourne City Council) and in many regional areas. This change was designed to make things harder for small parties like VS, and the results of this election show it worked as intended.
When two or three councillors were elected from a single (larger) ward, minor party candidates were in with a shot even when up against candidates from established parties like the Greens and Labor. In multi-member wards, two higher profile candidates could be elected, and there would still be space for a third candidate to get up. This is what happened in 2020 with VS’s Jorge Jorquera, who was elected in the Yarraville ward of Maribyrnong Council after receiving a first preference vote of just 8.8 percent.
In single-member wards, victory depends on both a high first preference vote and a decent flow of preferences from other candidates. In traditional strongholds of Labor and the Greens, this was always going to be a tough ask for socialists. 
VS went into this election with Jorquera as its sole sitting councillor. To the extent there is bad news in the party’s result this time, it’s that it couldn’t build on that total. Jorquera, unfortunately, narrowly missed out on re-election. About two hours’ drive north from Melbourne, though, in the regional town of Bendigo, VS candidate Owen Cosgriff <a href="https://x.com/6NewsAU/status/1854407601720885695">was elected</a> as the representative for Whipstick ward in the City of Greater Bendigo Council.
In a three-candidate field, Cosgriff received a first preference vote of 40.7 percent, winning with 52.7 percent after the distribution of preferences. This was a significant breakthrough for socialist politics in an area not known, <a href="https://www.bendigoadvertiser.com.au/story/7290147/inside-the-bendigo-rsls-battle-with-a-communist-trades-hall/">in recent times at least</a>, for its radicalism. 
Cosgriff told Red Flag that the result reflected the fact that “Victorian Socialists was the only progressive option on the ballot” (neither Labor nor the Greens ran a candidate against him). In addition, he said, “I was the only candidate who put forward a program of what I would attempt to do in office ... We promised concrete reforms like undoing the privatisation of aged care [and] lobbying for a commuter timetable for Bendigo trains, and we were rewarded for it”. 
Another bright spot for socialists was the re-election of Socialist Alliance’s Sue Bolton to Merri-bek Council. Bolton was first elected in 2012 off a first preference vote of 9.5 percent (in a multi-member ward) and this year received a first preference vote of 46 percent in a field of four candidates in the (single-member) Bababi Djinanang ward of Merri-bek, which covers the suburb of Fawkner and parts of North Coburg. Bolton told Red Flag that a big factor in her win was the work she has done to promote Palestine solidarity at a council level. In the last census, conducted in 2021, just under 35 percent of Fawkner residents <a href="https://www.abs.gov.au/census/find-census-data/quickstats/2021/210031237">identified as Muslim.</a>
It’s significant that, even with single-member wards stacking the odds against them, VS candidates came within striking distance of victory in several other places. In the Harvester ward of Brimbank Council (which covers the suburbs of Sunshine and Sunshine North in Melbourne’s west) <a href="https://victoriansocialists.org.au/candidates/liz-walsh-council">Liz Walsh</a>, who was the VS candidate for the Western Metro upper house region in the 2022 state election, received a first preference vote of 26.3 percent in a field of four, and ended second on 46.8 percent after the distribution of preferences. This result was particularly encouraging given that VS didn’t campaign in the area.
Other standout results include long-time marriage equality campaigner, local community activist and nurse <a href="https://victoriansocialists.org.au/candidates/cat-rose">Cat Rose</a> getting a first preference vote of 32.4 percent in Darebin Council’s West ward (in the inner-northern suburbs covering Thornbury and parts of Preston and Northcote). In a field of three, Rose finished just 36 votes behind the Greens candidate, and less than 200 votes behind Labor. Had she finished ahead of the Greens, there’s a decent chance she would have moved above Labor on preferences and been elected. At the last council election in 2020, the VS candidate in this ward (Darebin had already moved to single-member wards) got a first preference vote of 7.7 percent.
In the Bulleke-bek ward of Merri-bek Council (which covers the area immediately to the west of Sydney Road in Brunswick), VS candidate <a href="https://victoriansocialists.org.au/candidates/louisa-bassini">Louisa Bassini</a>, a community lawyer in the area of renters’ rights, came in second in a field of five candidates with 23 percent of first preference votes (behind the Greens candidate on 36.9 percent and ahead of Labor on 20 percent). Results in other wards in the area of the Victorian lower house seat of Brunswick were also well above the 8.1 percent that VS candidate Nahui Jimenez achieved there in the<a href="https://www.vec.vic.gov.au/results/state-election-results/2022-state-election-results/results-by-district/brunswick-district-results"> 2022 state election</a>.
No doubt some of the 67,296 people who voted for a VS candidate didn’t pay much attention to party affiliation. Council elections in Victoria are carried out in a way designed to depoliticise things as much as possible and encourage engagement with candidates as individuals, rather than representatives of parties or political world views. Holding elections via postal ballot contributes to this, as it precludes the possibility of party volunteers talking to voters at polling booths. And party affiliation isn’t listed next to candidates’ names on ballot papers.
VS pushed against this as much as possible. Its aim isn’t merely to get socialists elected, but to build the profile of socialist politics and to convince more people to join the socialist movement. Unlike many Labor and Liberal-aligned candidates, who (probably sensibly from a purely electoral perspective) preferred to present as “local independents” rather than associating themselves with their party brands, VS candidates put their political affiliation front and centre. Leaflets delivered by VS volunteers to voters’ homes encouraged them to “vote socialist for a council that puts people before profit”.
The main pitch to voters on these leaflets highlighted how “an out-of-control capitalist system is eroding the economic, social and environmental foundations of our society”. “We need councillors”, it went on, “who will stand up to the destructive, profit-driven agenda that dominates politics. Socialist councillors will fight for our communities, for workers and for those in need”. VS seriously campaigned in only a fraction of the 78 wards in which it stood a candidate. In those wards, which were by and large also the wards in which the party got its highest vote, it would have been hard for people to miss the socialist affiliation.
The results of this election will help to further establish VS as a serious socialist electoral alternative in Victoria. Heading into 2025 and the next federal election, the party has a growing membership and a higher profile than ever. In addition to the council campaign, VS members have this year kept up a hectic schedule of activism and organising in the Palestine solidarity campaign, rank-and-file unionism and many other areas.
In recent weeks the Murdoch press has run several hit pieces targeting the party. Most recently, the Australian <a href="https://x.com/vic_socialists/status/1857577253590401530">published an “exclusive” </a>in which it revealed that the lead VS Senate candidate, renters’ rights advocate and well-known socialist radical Jordan van den Lamb (aka <a href="https://www.instagram.com/purplepingers/">purplepingers</a>), had—in a post on the social media platform X—shockingly labelled police as “pigs” and “Nazis”. Melbourne’s Herald Sun <a href="https://x.com/vic_socialists/status/1847044199021240510">earlier called out</a> VS council candidates for, among other things, speaking at rallies in solidarity with Palestine and “calling for revolution”. This kind of attention from Murdoch’s attack dogs can only bode well for the future.
James Plested is the Victorian Socialists communications manager.

James Plested

Big vote for socialists in Victorian council elections

The US election is symptomatic of a new, gloomier political reality facing those concerned with global efforts to avert climate catastrophe. Since the issue of climate change first gained widespread attention in the early 1990s, it has never been far from the centre of political debate in most Western countries. As the pace of warming has increased, and its impacts have become more visible, you might expect that it would retain that place or even gain in importance in the minds of politicians and the voting public. In the US this year, the opposite has happened.
Not even the multiple weather-related disasters the country endured during the presidential campaign could shift the dial. Hurricane Helene roared out of the Gulf of Mexico and slammed into the southern Appalachian mountains in late September with devastating winds and catastrophic flooding. Entire towns were swept away, and more than 230 people were killed. Two weeks later another major hurricane hit Florida. It didn’t matter. The climate crisis didn’t rank as highly as it previously had in <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2024/09/09/issues-and-the-2024-election/">polls of voters’ concerns</a>, and it was barely mentioned by Joe Biden, his replacement as Democratic Party presidential nominee Kamala Harris or Donald Trump during their campaigns.
The lack of discussion of or concern about climate change in this election wasn’t a sign that efforts to limit warming are going well. Quite the opposite. The decades of green rhetoric by politicians and the never-ending round of global climate summits have got us nowhere. Total global greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise, and the rate of increase in the concentration of carbon dioxide and methane in the atmosphere (which are the most accurate measures of lack of progress) is accelerating. 
Over time, the gulf between the rhetoric used by politicians hoping to establish their green credentials and the grim reality of a society still well and truly hooked on fossil fuels has become harder and harder to ignore. This is, no doubt, part of the explanation for the growing phenomenon of “climate apathy”. For many years now, every time an election comes around we’ve been told by supposedly progressive parties like the US Democrats and Labor in Australia that climate change is a major challenge demanding urgent action. Again and again, though, when these parties come to power they fail to do anything more than the bare minimum about it.
You might object, in the case of the Biden administration, that the green rhetoric was matched to a degree by action. To the extent that Harris sought to draw attention to climate policy at all during her campaign, it was to highlight Biden’s “trillion dollar” investment in clean energy. At the same time, though, she made clear her continuing enthusiasm for fossil fuels. She was proud, she said, that the administration had “increased domestic gas production to historic levels” and that during her time in office the US has carried out “the largest increase in domestic oil production in history”. On both counts, she had every right to brag: in the 2010s the US overtook countries like Russia and Saudi Arabia to become the largest oil and gas producer in the world, and it hasn’t looked back since.
Taking climate change seriously demands finding ways to wind down the fossil fuel economy. With something like this, you can’t “have your cake and eat it too”. However much you might invest in clean energy (and it’s true the Biden administration invested a lot), if that investment is being directly counteracted by significant increases in the production and consumption of fossil fuels, then what’s the point? 
We’ve had years of “climate wars” and “climate elections”. This time it was different. This was, when it comes to the climate, a “what’s the point?” election. We shouldn’t be overly surprised. When—despite what the scientists have been saying for decades and despite their own green rhetoric—those in power continually send the message that it’s not only okay but commendable to continue to expand the fossil fuel economy, it’s only natural that some would start to question whether climate change is really worth worrying about.
Donald Trump, of course, was only too happy to capitalise on this sentiment. Unlike the Democrats, Trump has always been very open about his enthusiasm for fossil fuels and disdain for climate science. During his campaign <a href="https://x.com/KamalaHQ/status/1852547593873526930">he promised</a> to “terminate the green new scam, one of the great scams in history”, and scoffed at the prospect of sea level rises, saying “Who the hell cares?” and joking, in <a href="https://www.rev.com/transcripts/elon-musk-and-donald-trump-interview">an interview with Elon Musk</a>, that “you’ll have more oceanfront property”.
Trump sought to link the Democrats’ climate initiatives to the inflationary wave that hit the US and much of the rest of the world in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Biden administration, he said in July in his <a href="https://www.nbcboston.com/news/national-international/read-donald-trumps-full-rnc-speech-accepting-gop-nomination/3432055/">speech to the Republican National Convention</a>, has “spent trillions of dollars on things having to do with the green new scam, and that’s caused tremendous inflationary prices”. He promised to “drill, baby, drill” to lower the cost of energy for US consumers.
The Democrats had no real answer to this. Having established that they too were enthusiasts for the “drill, baby, drill” mentality, they could hardly turn around and denounce Trump for it. So, by and large, they remained silent. This strategy, predictably, didn’t work well. While Trump supporters were thinking “What’s the point of action on climate change?”, many potential Democrat supporters were thinking “What’s the point of voting?”. Millions of those who had voted for Joe Biden in 2020 stayed home this time. The Democrats’ promise of a “Trump-lite” administration inspired few.
Last time he was in power, Trump implemented a range of policies favourable to the fossil fuel industry—including reversing or rolling back almost 100 environmental regulations related to things like carbon dioxide emissions from power plants and cars. He also withdrew the US from the Paris Agreement, a (theoretically at least) legally binding international treaty committing countries that signed up to it to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. His second term in the White House is likely to bring more of the same.
“That things ‘just go on’ is the catastrophe”, Walter Benjamin once wrote. “It is not that which is approaching but that which is.” Another four years of Trump is no new catastrophe for the planet. The catastrophe was already here. The terrifying thing is that this election will reinforce the tendency for people in countries like the US and Australia to think “What’s the point in trying to do anything about it?”

‘Drill, baby, drill’: Climate change ignored in the US election

Is the Democratic administration of Joe Biden pro-worker or anti-worker? Opinions differ. Take Bernie Sanders. The day after the 2024 election, the Vermont senator issued a statement denouncing Biden, Vice President Harris and the Democratic Party for having “abandoned the working class”. The language was punchy, direct, withering and accurate. The Democratic leadership, Sanders wrote, has nothing to offer workers. The party, controlled by “big money interests”, does not understand workers’ “pain and political alienation”. As an inevitable consequence of this, workers of all races are abandoning it. 
But there are other currents of opinion about the Harris-Biden Democrats. For example, that Joe Biden is “the most pro-working-class president in modern American history”, with an agenda that speaks “to the needs of the working class”. He is “the most effective president in modern history”, “a good and decent Democratic president with a record of real accomplishment”, who “wants to tax the rich so that we can fund the needs of working families”. These were the words of, um, Bernie Sanders, a few months ago. 
It was easy to lose track of Sanders over the last few years. He has not been worth paying much attention to. But over the last decade, Sanders has gone from being the scourge of the Democratic establishment to one of its most reliable surrogates.
In 2016 and 2020, he stood against establishment Democratic candidates, achieved widespread support, was buried by the Democratic apparatus and then rolled over to campaign for the people who crushed him. Each time he ran, the process embedded him more deeply into the party machine. In 2024, he didn’t even challenge Biden or Harris. His email list has become a Democratic Party fundraising tool—reliant on worn-out catchphrases and in-jokes from his past presidential runs that are only marginally less groan-worthy than the coconut-pilled bratmongering of the official Harris campaign.
Sanders once used hard-hitting, pro-worker language to attack the record of the mainstream Democrats. But throughout 2024, he used the same rhetoric to demand loyalty and obedience to the leader —whoever that leader might be.
When even the corporate liberal press could see that Joe Biden had to step aside, Sanders and his protégés in Congress became the president’s most aggressive and reliable bodyguards. It was a head-spinning role reversal. Establishment mouthpieces like the Washington Post and the New York Times were stating an obvious truth: Biden was past it and would have to drop plans to run for a second term. 
Sanders devoted himself to a transparently dishonest campaign to defend and promote Biden as a champion of the workers. In a major Times op-ed, he <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/13/opinion/joe-biden-president.html">extolled</a>
Biden’s allegedly pro-worker record and demanded that Democrats “stop the bickering and nit-picking”. A couple of weeks later, Biden threw in the towel. Sanders, the loyal mouthpiece of the Biden leadership, was left holding the bag.
I don’t care who leads the Democrats. But the incident proved that Sanders was now officially part of the dishonest, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2024/07/13/biden-sanders-aoc-liberal-lifeline/">deal-making Democratic machine</a>. Even most right-wing Democrats weren’t as willing as Sanders to burn their reputation in defence of a collapsing Biden candidacy. 
It didn’t stop there—and it wasn’t only Sanders. When Kamala Harris took over the reins, Sanders carried on his role as a key public advocate for a genocide-enabling neoliberal (and former prosecutor). His extra-special <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vf5MThSniiY">Palestine-themed video manifesto</a>, in which he demanded that Palestine supporters swallow their pride and fall in behind the vice president, was a low point. “<a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/4868310-bernie-sanders-liz-dick-cheney-kamala-harris/">I applaud the Cheneys</a> for their courage in defending democracy”: that was another.
His surrogates and allies, now an entrenched Democratic faction, joined in—and went further. Congressional representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez spoke at the Democratic National Convention to praise “leaders like Kamala and Tim [Walz]”. Her speech could have come from the mouth of any careerist Democrat of the Bill Clinton generation. 
Sanders at least acknowledged he disagreed with Harris on Gaza. Nothing like that from AOC. She assured the audience of party officials and donors: “[Harris] is working tirelessly to secure a ceasefire in Gaza and bringing hostages home”. (No Palestinians were permitted to speak at the event.) The rest of the campaign brought further embarrassments. American politics moves quickly. AOC is now irrevocably cringe. To paraphrase George Orwell: If you want a picture of the future of the Democratic Party, imagine <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAnKayYSStM">AOC livestreaming Madden with Tim Walz—forever</a>.
As Donald Trump’s election proves, dishonesty is not a decisive disadvantage in capitalist politics. Leftists with functioning memories might roll their eyes to see Sanders suddenly remember that the Democrats are actually quite bad. But many will be grateful to hear someone stating obvious truths and calling for pro-worker politics. Still, there are some lessons to be drawn from Sanders’ brat summer.
First: how quickly, and comprehensively, political “harm minimisation” turns into loyal advocacy. Maybe Sanders thought he’d extracted some concessions from Harris and Biden. Maybe he really believes that Trump is a fascist danger who must be stopped at all costs—fair enough. Either way, Sanders seems to think that a Democrat in power is a necessary condition for social progress. So any doubters must be convinced—even if they’re doubting for good reasons. By this mechanism, “pragmatic” leftists become delusional Biden loyalists. People like Sanders, with authority on the left, devote themselves to justifying—and lying about—the allegedly pro-worker and anti-genocide outlooks of people like Biden and Harris.
But a Democrat in office isn’t necessary for social progress. Yes, America needs a form of politics that is pro-worker, anti-racist and not beholden to the oligarchy. But just as much, it needs a form of politics that operates outside elections—and that can function no matter who’s in the White House, the Supreme Court and the Congress. It needs a pro-worker politics that draws its power from strikes and social movements, not fundraisers and TV advertising. That form of politics isn’t going to come from the Democrats.
If an alternative isn’t constructed, most of the people issuing these broad-left denunciations of the Democrats—no matter how strident and accurate—are going to end up back as captives of a future Harris or Biden equivalent.

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